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There was an allegation made on the Newsarama message board that Con
Organizers HobbyStar had been listing Toronto Area artists as confirmed
guests, when they were not confirmed. They were doing this knowing that if
fans came and didn't see the pro, they'd blame the pro for not showing up
rather than the con organizers. Pro's would know this too, and they would
feel guilty about their fans showing up for nothing - and as a result go to
the con.
There were a number of Toronto area pro's who didn't show up at the con. So
I decided to look into the allegation. I made attempts to contact a number
of the missing pro's with very few getting back to me at first. One pro that
did get back was Stuart Immonen. He pointed me to his website where he
writes:
"Stuart will not be in attendance at the Canadian National Comic Book Expo
in Toronto this year, despite the advertising you may have seen. At no time
was any such appearance confirmed between us and the organizers. Any
announcements of upcoming convention appearances will be made here as soon
as they are confirmed."
When I e-mailed him he went into further detail. He said HobbyStar had
contacted him about going and he told them "No." Latter on they phoned him,
pleading with him to show up just for one day. He said he would consider it
and let them know. He then discovered that HobbyStar had put him and his
writing partner (Kathryn Kuder) on their advertising as confirmed guests.
Stuart asked them to remove his name from the advertising as he hadn't
decided yet, but they did not do so. He then e-mailed HobbyStar back and
told them he would not be attending the con.
Then the flyers went out promoting the con - again with Stuarts and Kathryn
as guests. Stuart asked HobbyStar to put on their website that flyer was in
error and that he would not be going to the con, but they did not do this.
Stuart said this is not the first time this had happened. He also told
HobbyStar he would not be going to any of their conventions from now on and
asked to be removed from their contact list.
I contacted James Armstrong, who handles the guests and press for HobbyStar.
His response was they didn't want to get into a "fight" with Stuart Immonen
and he believes that he is telling a correct version of events. James also
believes they can win Stuart back for future conventions.
I did eventually hear from other "missing" pro's. Terry Pallot said he was
listed and did intend to go this year but family emergencies prevented him
from doing so. Craig A. Taillefer said the same thing and went further to
say he goes almost every year and has come to expect them to list him
without asking him first and he's okay with it. Ho Che Anderson also told me
he was contacted prior to being listed and intended to go but wasn't able to
as well. Cameron Stewart says his studio got swamped with work just prior to
the convention and while he had all intentions of going he couldn't do it
without blowing deadlines. Mike Cherkas and Larry Hancock also intended to
go but had to cancel just shortly prior to the convention. Richard Pace also
wasn't able to appear due to a scheduling conflict with his family. All of
these pro's made it clear they didn't have any problem with HobbyStar or how
they operate.
James Armstrong from HobbyStar also said the original complaint from the
Newsarama message board comes from Paradise Comics staff and a small press
person that had been kicked out because of repeated bounced cheques. It
should be known that Paradise Comics is a Toronto area store that is setting
up 3 day comic convention called Toronto Comicon in November and March.
HobbyStar is now competing with them by running conventions using the same
name a month prior to Paradise Comics.
I contacted Paradise Comics and they said they did not post the message. I
found it come from one of their customers Kevin Boyd, who does help them out
at conventions. Paradise owner Peter Dixon says it would be easy to assume
he was an employee, but he's not. I had talked to Kevin and he went into
further detail regarding who wasn't contacted and how I could get in touch
with them. Paradise Comics and The Beguiling are both comic stores/dealers
that regularly attend the convention. They forwarded messages for me and
helped me out. The Beguiling owner Peter Birkemoe also handles the sale of
original art by some of the "missing" artists. He was willing to speak with
me, telling me that Chester Brown, Joe Matt and Seth had all gone to
HobbyStar conventions in previous years at his urging. Peter said since he's
concentrates on selling works by those artists he was hoping to improve
sales of their books by having them there. But because the convention is
pretty much geared to super
heroes it was demoralizing for them to sit in Artist's Alley and pretty
much be ignored by the masses despite getting major mainstream press just
prior to the event.
So this year Seth, Chester Brown and Joe Matt didn't want to go. James
Armstrong from HobbyStar called Seth and asked if the three of them would be
going this year, Seth said he wasn't going but told James he would have to
call Chester Brown and Joe Matt to find out if they were going to go.
According to Seth, neither Chester Brown nor Joe Matt was contacted by
HobbyStar regarding their attendance. But all three of their names were on
the initial advertising for the convention. By the time the program guide
came out, both Seth and Joe Matt's names had been removed but Chester Brown
was still listed as being there, even with a table number and location. But
he wasn't there on any of the three days.
I asked James Armstrong about the situation with Seth, Chester Brown and Joe
Matt. He said he remembers contacting Seth and knew he wasn't coming and
also later learned that Joe Matt had moved to LA. He was told Chester Brown
was going to show up with Mark Askwith - who did show up but Chester did
not. I tried getting in contact with Mark Askwith to find out what he knew
but I've not heard back from him as of this writing. I was also unable to
get a hold of Chester himself.
It's been assumed by some people that HobbyStar simply uses the lists of
pro's that showed up for previous con's for future shows without contacting
said artists to see if they are going to show up first. I asked James about
that and he said everybody was invited and it does say on the advertising
that "*Guests are subject to cancellation or schedule change due to
professional commitments." James agree that some people may see this as a
cop-out, but some pro's do cancel at the last minute, which did happen this
year, and there is nothing that can be done about that.
In summary, it does appear that HobbyStar does have a list of local area
pro's that they automatically advertise every year as guests, and then they
contact said guests to confirm. As people say no, names get removed from
future advertising. This year an error was made with Stuart Immonen. It's
been made clear to me that some pro's do not like this practice and consider
it unethical and I've heard more pro's are unhappy but I was unable to
confirm it with them first hand. Most of the missing pro's that replied to
me are okay with the way HoobyStar does things as they go practically every
year. It appears 2003 was simply a bad year for last minute conflicts with
many Toronto area pro's.
Regards,
Jamie Coville
2003-09-01
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